MirBSD manpage: gzexe(1)

GZEXE(1)                     BSD Reference Manual                     GZEXE(1)

NAME

     gzexe - create auto-decompressing executables

SYNOPSIS

     gzexe [-d] file ...

DESCRIPTION

     The gzexe utility uses gzip(1) to compress executables, producing execut-
     ables that decompress on-the-fly when executed. This saves disk space, at
     the cost of slower execution times. The original executables are saved by
     copying each of them to a file with the same name with a '~' suffix ap-
     pended. After verifying that the compressed executables work as expected,
     the backup files can be removed.

     The options are as follows:

     -d      Decompress executables previously compressed by gzexe.

     The gzexe program refuses to compress non-regular or non-executable
     files, files with a setuid or setgid bit set, files that are already
     compressed using gzexe, files in /bin or /sbin, or programs it needs to
     perform on-the-fly decompression: sh(1), basename(1), mktemp(1), rm(1),
     echo(1), tail(1), gzip(1), and chmod(1).

SEE ALSO

     compress(1), gzip(1)

CAVEATS

     The gzexe utility replaces files by overwriting them with the generated
     compressed executable. To be able to do this, it is required that the
     original files are writable.

MirBSD #10-current              July 30, 2003                                1